First an illustrator and master of Japanese graphic design, as well as a designer of Kabuki sets and costumes, after seeing a Picasso exhibition in New York in 1980, Yokoo Tadanori decided to devote himself primarily to painting. Openly referencing Western painters, he cultivates “a great variety of genres and styles,” making eclecticism his pictorial signature. In 2006, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain organized Yokoo Tadanori’s rst exhibition in Europe.
In 2014, on the occasion of Fondation Cartier’s thirtieth anniversary, he was entrusted the creation of more than one hundred portraits of the artists, thinkers, and scientists who have marked its history. Executed in di erent pictorial styles, these portraits draw attention to the fact that behind every piece of work and every exhibition, exists a real face, a real presence, and a real relationship. It underlines the sense of continuity, loyalty, and the strong and enduring links forged by the Fondation Cartier with each of these people over more than thirty years of patronage.